Hackers Take to the Streets

      by Wyatt Walter

It seems that people have found a new and different way to spread viruses without having to be terribly clever coders at all. Social engineering has always been a much easier and more effective way to spread malware, but I haven’t heard of anything like this before. According to Gizmodo, a group of “hackers” (the popular media kind) have been using placing fake parking tickets on cars in Grand Forks, North Dakota with a URL for the “offenders” to view what they have done wrong. The site asks them to download a toolbar that will allow them to view it. The toolbar is actually a virus that brings a lot of popups and a fake antivirus as well as a few other nasty little malwares. Supposedly the trick has done quite well in the college town and a lot of users have been taken by surprise. It’s a pretty clever technique that just proves that it’s just as important to educate users as it is to protect them with software when it comes to viruses.

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Filed under News : Comments (0) : Feb 8th, 2009